1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to photographic processing equipment. In particular, the present invention is a print sorter for automatically sorting individually cut photographic prints.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In commercial photographic processing operations, very high rates of processing need to be achieved and maintained in order to operate profitably. To expedite the photographic processing, orders containing film of similar type and size are spliced together for developing.
After developing, the photographic images contained in the film negatives are printed in edge-to-edge relationship on a continuous strip of photosensitive print paper by a photographic printer. The photographic printer causes high intensity light to be passed through the negative and imaged onto the photographic print paper. The photographic emulsion layers on the print paper are exposed and are subsequently processed to produce a print of the image contained in the negative.
After the strip of photographic print paper has been processed, the prints are inspected by an operator. Remake and reject prints are identified by marks made on the face of the particular print by the operator. A photographic paper cutter then cuts individual prints from the strip, and the prints are sorted by customer order (either manually or automatically) and ultimately packaged and sent to the customer.
Automatic print sorters have been developed to sort the prints of each customer order into good, remake and reject categories. Examples of automatic sorting apparatus are described in the following U.S. Pat. Nos.: Jensen et al 4,114,349; Diesch et al 4,260,148; Larson et al 4,313,669; Jensen 4,340,213; and Willenbring 4,345,754.
In each of these patents, individually cut prints are fed to a conveyor bed formed by a series of print slides, and are driven by drive rollers positioned above the print slides. The drive rollers apply the driving force to the print by engaging the top surface of the print.
In the past, the spacing of the drive rollers from the top surface of the print slide in a print sorter of this type has been difficult to maintain accurately and yet such accuracy is critical to the proper operation of the sorter. If the drive rollers become misaligned the printer may be misfed or become skewed in the feed path. The prints are driven at high speed and care must be taken to avoid damaging the top surface of the print, which contains the photographic image. The average print is on the order of 0.010 inches thick, and therefore the tolerance in the adjustment of the spacing between the drive roller and the top surface of the print slide is quite difficult. In addition, the requirement of adjustability of the position of the drive shafts greatly complicates the design and increases the parts count of the sorter.